“Nowhere is safe.” Barbas croaked, his eyes wide and hollow, his dark face turned a mottled gray in his fear. “They are Beneath. They are even beneath the dream, and they can reach up and touch us here. They are Beneath!”
…
Volistad
It turned out that Nissikul made a much better mage than she made a ranger. Even slowed as I was, carrying the dead weight of the wounded Thukkar, it only took me a single day to find her. She had made her passage beneath Ravanur’s skin easy, using her power over the ice and air to create rungs and steps to help her descend into the crevices and cracks, and as a result, she had left me with an easy trail to follow. I supposed it made sense. She didn’t expect anyone to be following her- everyone assumed she was dead- and besides, if someone was trailing her, she probably assumed that they would be working towards the same goal as she was. I walked in her footsteps, once quite literally- during a memorable climb up, a nearly sheer slope of ice had melted and flash-froze.
When I finally caught sight of her, Nissikul was crossing a narrow bridge over a chasm, the ice beneath her feet was dark as her pitiless eyes. I clambered over the ledge I had just scaled, and just stared at her for a moment. Thukkar had told me she had lost her arm, that she had made another of the Stormcaller-summoned black ice that was the tool of their trade- but I didn’t believe him, not entirely. Sure, I had seen the crushed, severed arm that he had said she left behind. Sure, I had seen the trail of splashed blood leading away before it abruptly stopped, but on some level, I thought, or perhaps hoped that he had been confused. But now I saw that he was right- and he might have understated it a bit. Nissi’s body was a mottled patchwork of bruises, streaked with smeared blood that had dried or frozen on her skin. Her right arm was missing from the shoulder, and where the muscles and bones had been brutally torn away, a new limb had been attached in their place. It was black as any Stormcaller summoning, and it glittered with a cold power I thought I could sense even at this range. She was naked, apparently not bothering with the frozen armor that her kind usually summoned for battle, and I could see that her injuries were far more extensive than even Thukkar had said. One of her legs was twisted at an odd angle, and the distorted skin around one of the bruises on her flank, told me that she most likely had a broken rib or two. She leaned heavily on a black frozen spear, but even so, I had no idea how she had managed to make it this far at all. It was small wonder I had caught up with her, she shouldn’t have been able to walk at all. The fact that she was hobbling along, lent witness to a depth of inner strength I hadn’t known she had possessed- or perhaps all it indicated was a level of madness I had never seen, even in a Stormcaller.
“Nissikul!” I yelled, and my own voice echoed back from the hundreds of facets of the crevice, mocking the desperation in my shout. Thukkar stirred, wakened from his feverish sleep, and he lifted his head groggily from my shoulder, which he had been using as a pillow. “Nissi!”
Nissikul turned swiftly, deftly, moving with far more grace than anyone with her injuries should have been able to. She raised the spear up by her ear in preparation to throw. She saw me and froze, and for a moment we just stood there, staring at each other in shock and disbelief. Then the cold fury and iron determination seemed to leak out of Nissi, and she slumped to the black ice of her own bridge, the spear rolling out of her nerveless fingers and tumbling away into the abyss below. Her voice was a dry rasp as she choked out, “Vol-Volistad? Is that really you?”
“Nissi!” I ran toward the bridge, heedless of the danger, and without a sparing it a thought, I stepped out onto the length of black, glittering ice. That was a very bad idea. Pain like nothing I had ever experienced blasted up through me, searing up through my foot and climbing my leg in wires of a cold so deep it seemed it should freeze the very air inside my lungs. The horrifying glacial power surged into me, questing through my veins and reaching out for my heart- the new, magick champion’s heart that the Deepseeker had given me. I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear my own voice, only the thundering metronome of the heart in my chest as it began to slow. Something hit me, lifting me up off my feet and sending me flying backward away from Nissikul, but I couldn’t see anymore. My vision had turned a darkening red, as my eyes froze beneath the horrible power of a Stormcaller’s witch-ice. I struck what must have been a cavern wall, and I dimly winced in sympathy for Thukkar, who was still strapped to my back, and must have taken the full impact. The beat of my heart slowed further and further… and stopped.
…
I burst back into consciousness all at once, gasping for a ragged breath through a raw, abused throat. All I could see was the icy ceiling of the cavern, the ragged scar of the great crevice that bisected it rising into unseen darkness. Nissikul’s face appeared before me, abruptly, her mad black eyes were wide and rimmed with red. “Vol? Brother? Palamun above, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
I retched, hard, and flecks of blood speckled Nissi’s face. That wasn’t good. I tried to put on a brave face. “It’s alright, Nissi. I should have remembered not to touch that black stuff. Palamun’s teeth, that hurt.”
Nissi touched my face with trembling fingers, and then held them up before her bottomless abyssal eyes. They were stained with my blood, dark and red. I tried to say something, but Nissikul put a hand over my mouth and frowned, lifting her reddened fingertips to her nose and inhaling deeply. “Deepseeker magicks.” All the fear drained out of her face, replaced with cold suspicion. “You’re healing. What did that old goat do to you?”
I laughed hoarsely. “More than your master did, Nissi. He healed me, replaced my heart, and told me to go find the god that you and yours just tried so hard to kill.” She was right about the Deepseeker’s magicks. I was healing. My heartbeat was once again strong and steady in my chest, and the horrible cold that had shot through my veins was being slowly forced back. I could feel my arms and legs again. They hurt like I had just experienced my ranger initiation again, but I could feel them, and that was progress.
Nissikul hissed at my words, recoiling from me as if I had gone feral and lunged for her throat. “Palamun above, the Elder was right. You have been corrupted by the false god!” Tears welled up in her empty eyes. “She killed you, and there’s something else in you, wearing your body.” She raised her hands, and this time, they didn’t shake. A wicked, razor-edged dagger of that same terrible ice grew in her grip, the impossibly sharp point aimed down at my heart.
“Nissi,” I said quickly, desperation plain in my voice. “The Dark Ones have corrupted the Elders. Only the Deepseeker escaped. You’re confused. You have been lied to. I’m your brother- the Deepseeker saved my life!”
My sister snarled, baring her delicate, curving fangs, and raised the dagger above her head. A sinister light began to glow from somewhere deep within the shard of dark ice as she summoned more of her horrible power into the weapon. “The Deepseeker was taken long ago. My master has been aware of his corruption for some time. The old madman probably called down your god, the Dirt-Eater, to help him free the Dark Ones from beneath the ice.” She spat in my face and the saliva burned cold against my skin. “Don’t you lie to me, demon. My brother is dead, and the Deepseeker sent him to his death.”
“Your master sent me to Joanna!” I screamed in her face, my fear and desperation melting away before a powerful rage that had begun welling up from deep in my stomach. “You took me to him, remember? And he told me to investigate her, that he didn’t believe Vassa’s claim that she was a false god. And she did no harm to any of us, but for the Stormcaller that he sent to kill her while I was imprisoned!” I surged forward, the strength coming back into my arms, and I seized Nissikul by the wrists, holding her dagger up and away from me. Her false arm was cold to the touch, but this time, the cold did not bite into me. The magickal heart in my chest surged and pushed it back. I would not be killed by a Stormcaller again, not even my own sister. “In fact, all the death that has come since Joanna fell to Ravanur has been the fault
of Lot and the other masters! Your sister Stormcaller, who was sent to kill Joanna and failed, all the brave warriors who died when you brought down the tower, and me-” I let go of one of Nissi’s wrists and unstrapped one side of my breastplate, pulling back the armor and the furs beneath, displaying the ugly mess of scars where Lot’s spear had exploded from my chest. “Your master called me home to report to him, listened to what I told him, and then he stabbed me in the back and left me to die. The Deepseeker is the only reason I’m alive. Tell me which one of those people sounds more like one of the Dark Ones?”
Nissikul twisted out of my grip and scrambled back and away from me. I stood, quickly, preparing to fend off another attack. The magick in my chest was strong, but I didn’t know if I could stop her from killing me again- Stormcallers were fiendishly strong. I quickly took stock of the situation. Thukkar laid sprawled a spearcast from me, propped up on my pack. At least Nissikul had the presence to show that much humanity to the wounded soldier. Pain twisted his face, but his eyes were steady and intense as he watched us. We were all gathered on one side of the crevice, and the black ice bridge that had nearly killed me was gone. Nissikul crouched just out of my reach, clad loosely in my cape, the dagger held before her in a reverse-grip. I reached out to her. “Nissi, please. I don’t want to hurt you. But our people are in terrible danger, and Joanna is the only one who can save them.”
Nissikul shook her head, tears streaming down her face to freeze into icicles that dangled from her chin. “Of course you would say that, of course you would believe that.” She snarled and tossed her dagger at the cavern wall half a spear-length from me. It shattered into powder, blasting away a chunk of ice the size of my head in a muffled detonation and a flash of white light. “But my master told me that he had killed you when you attacked him, that he had stabbed you in the heart.” She pointed to my chest. “And that’s an exit wound.” She shook her head again. “I know my brother is far too skilled a warrior to be stabbed in the back in open battle. Only betrayal could have done that to you.” She shook, her fingers curled to brandish her claws. “And Palamun above, those warriors.” She looked over at Thukkar, lying half-paralyzed on the ice, and something inside her broke. She threw back her head and roared, and it was so loud I had to cover my ears to protect myself from the raw fury and pain blasting out in all directions. A great groan emanated from the walls of the glacial cavern around me, and shards of ice shook free from the unseen ceiling and fell, shattering as they struck the floor around us. I waited until she was finished and then stepped forward and enclosed her in an embrace. She was my sister, and she was alive. The rest of it didn’t matter for the moment. Spent, she rested her head against my chest and sobbed.
…
We camped there, by the abyss, and for the next two days, Nissikul worked her powers on Thukkar, crafting subtle, complicated magicks to try to restore his damaged spine. It turned out that his back was not actually broken, rather, it was badly misaligned, and the muscles all around his spine had been torn and destroyed. Her powers were not well suited to healing, she said, and she had to apply them carefully to restore the ranger’s ravaged body. For his part, Thukkar got over his hesitation to allow Nissikul to try to heal him fairly quickly, and soon, the two of them were chatting amiably while she worked. I spent most of that time ranging out in ever widening circles from our campsite, searching for signs of Joanna in the crevices, tunnels, and caves that I could reach. There was little for me to find, for the most part, though a frozen pool of some foul black substance that I found in one of the rubble-strewn caves drew me up short. I couldn’t figure out what the stuff was- it was unlike anything I had ever seen. I had the feeling that Joanna had something to do with it, but I couldn’t guess what connection there might actually be.
When I returned on the second night, bearing the day’s catch, I found Thukkar standing shakily, partially supported by a smiling, exhausted Nissikul. She had let the witch-ice arm lapse the previous day, and she looked nearly as frail as the battered ranger she was supporting. They both looked in my direction as I approached, each of them showing their teeth in hungry anticipation at the sight of the dukkar seal I had slung over my shoulder. I bared my own fangs in a possessive grimace, but I simultaneously smiled my eyes at them to show that I was joking. “I’m glad you’re both feeling a little better.” I noted as I approached. I noticed that Nissikul’s twisted leg had straightened itself out. It was still horribly bruised, but she looked less like a walking corpse than before. It seemed that no matter what her limitations were when trying to heal others; Nissi’s magicks had no problem taking care of her body, given that she gave them half a chance to work.
I strode into the camp and dropped the blubbery seal to the ice before them. It had been a clean kill- I had climbed down a deep crevice to find one of the places where the ice had turned to water, and held a scrap of meat above the surface. When the inquisitive dukkar lunged up to snatch at the morsel, I had caught it instead and broken its neck. They really weren’t the smartest animals that managed to live beneath Ravanur’s skin, but I was grateful that it had been there. There was little food down here unless one managed to kill a burug, and that was quite difficult if you didn’t catch it from above. We were lucky- our path had kept us fairly close to a mountain ridge, and so some of the heat of the great mother allowed for the sort of life that we needed, if we wanted to eat better than the occasional barnacle or rodent.
Nissikul helped Thukkar sit down, while I swiftly gutted my kill. My hunting knife was gone, along with the rest of my original gear, and while the Deepseeker had supplied me with a complete complement of ranger weapons, he had forgotten some of the little things. I made do with my claws, and despite some difficulty, I was able to field-strip the carcass in an acceptable amount of time. I tossed the liver and entrails over towards my companions, and busied myself draining the body and preparing it for travel. The dukkar I had caught wasn’t large, but if it was rationed, it would sustain us for quite some time. There was nothing to burn to make a fire, but in a pinch, my people survived just fine off of raw meat. We preferred it cooked, but when you walked the deep frozen paths of Ravanur, you didn’t have the luxury of being picky.
“So,” Thukkar said between mouthfuls. “Which one of your Elders is right?” Both Nissikul and I looked over at him quickly, frowning. He put up both hands, placating, the effect somewhat ruined by the blood spattering his hands and face. “Not to start any trouble, but Nissikul, your Elder isn’t exactly acting in good faith, and Volistad, the Deepseeker isn’t the most trustworthy type either.”
“I see what you mean about Lot,” I said, gesturing toward my own chest. “But why doubt the Deepseeker? He did save my life after all.”
Thukkar took another messy bite of his food and chewed contemplatively before continuing. “He did, but look at it from the outside. You were dead, and he revived you, so you would be in his debt. You would do whatever he wanted. He gave you all kinds of powerful weapons and tools, so that you would be overwhelmed, and wouldn’t question what he was saying.” The ranger pointed to Nissikul. “I’m not saying that Lot isn’t a bastard, but what if he was right about the Deepseeker? Even if he wasn’t right about your god, Volistad.”
I frowned and opened my mouth to protest that Joanna wasn’t my god, but Nissikul cut me off with an upraised hand. “That’s definitely possible,” she said. “I mean, he has been watching the Deepseeker for a very long time. I have been keeping an eye on the crazy old goat for him, and there is definitely something wrong with him.”
I snorted. “That’s just the way the Deepseeker is, though. And your master is hardly normal. Or does he talk like that just because he feels like it?” I smiled with my eyes to soften my words. “I mean, let’s be honest here, you Stormcallers aren’t exactly bastions of normal, rational behavior.”
Nissi stuck her red tongue out at me. “That’s not the same thing,” she said. “We are all a little strange,” she admitted. “But that com
es from the-” she hesitated. “That comes from the ritual we go through when we earn our power.
“How do we know it’s not the same with the Deepseeker?” I asked, choosing to ignore Nissi’s discomfort over mentioning “the ritual”. I had asked her about it before, and she had never told me a thing. It was a secret. “He’s been around for longer than anyone can remember, and even the oldest members of the tribe say he was old when they were children. He deals with some powerful magicks, just like your people, and they had to have changed him over his long life.”
Thukkar cut in again, frowning with concentration. “But we know where Stormcaller power comes from. All Stormcallers possess in them the Breath of Ravanur, one of the great winds that bring the storms. Their power comes from the Great Mother herself.” He gestured to my armor, scrawled as it was with strange symbols and seals, glowing with strange arcane power. “But we don’t know where that comes from. The Deepseeker always just goes down into the dark and brings back his ‘blessings’, and we accept it because they keep us warm when we leave the village.”
“So?” I shrugged. “The power of the Stormcallers and the Deepseeker are both things we don’t understand. Why does it matter how they are made. We’ve seen what they do.” I gestured to Nissikul. “Stormcallers keep the wrath of Ravanur at bay when we go to the surface, and they reshape the ice to keep the village from being crushed beneath the glacier.” I gestured to myself, and then pointed to the glowing blessing that Thukkar wore as a thick cuff about one wrist. “And the Deepseeker keeps our people warm on our journeys into the cold.”
Alien Romance Box Set: Alien Former: Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Books 1-5) Page 18